Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill

It is a shambles, as my colleague says, because as Minister Power provides some resources for victims, Nick Smith pulls other resources away. We raised issues around the resources.

This is a friendly day.

The member says it is completely different. Well, that shows Mr Quinn up for what he is. If he sees the issue as being completely different for the victim of sexual abuse or of a sexual assault to require assistance during the court proceeding and beyond that time, I ask him what the difference is. There is no difference to their trauma. I ask him to go and ask a victim of sexual abuse.

Then we come—

What are you talking about?

Hayes John Hayes Link to this

Well, if the member woke up, he might know.

Then we come to the amounts that are projected to be raised through this levy. I pay tribute to the ACT Party and Mr Garrett, because Mr Garrett made a very important speech. He said that he and his party are as sceptical as the Labour Party about whether this legislation will work. I believe that with a levy of $50 per offender under this legislation, it will cost more than that to collect it. It will cost more to collect the levy than the revenue that is gained to dish out to victims. I predict that the Government will end up topping up, perhaps at the next Budget, the amount of money that it gets in. I predict that the cost of collection will outstrip the money that is brought in. Mr Garrett said, I believe—and he will correct me if I misquote him—he would stand by us, and may even propose amendments himself to try to deliver support for victims in an appropriate way, if this legislation does not work.

I say to the Government that if it were really serious about giving the victims of crime direct assistance, it would not worry about a levy and the bureaucracy of collecting it. If the Government were serious it would take half the money, or maybe a quarter of the money, that it has given to independent private schools—$5 million, $6 million, or any part of the $35 million—and it would give that money to Victim Support directly, and to other non-governmental organisations and agencies that deal with victims every day. It would give them that resource and tell them to go away and do the work that it wants them to do. The Government would tell those organisations to put an arm around victims, look after them, make sure they are OK, and not to worry about the bureaucracy around the collection of the funds for that work.

There would not be any bureaucracy if there were a direct cash injection to those people. But oh, no—

Put it on the bill, Phil!

“Put it on the bill”, someone said. Who was that genius? No we do not have to put it on the bill, Mr Hayes. The Government should take a quantum of the money it is going to give to private schools and give it to those in need, if it is really serious about helping victims. That was another silly interjection from that loose member.

Oh, we are touchy!

Yep, we are touchy. I believe that we should make provision in this legislation to resource victims appropriately. We should not write a pamphlet, because what this is really about is saying we have a thing called a victim’s levy. The issue of whether the money gets to the victims of crime is another thing—that is the difference. So it is not putting it on the bill. I say to Mr Hayes that it is called reallocating the priorities, and deciding whether the priority is giving $35 million to private schools or giving $5 million, $10 million, or $15 million to victims.

The other problem with this levy is that it is $50 per offender. A triple murderer will pay $50, even though he or she has committed three offences. A shoplifter will pay $50. A rapist will pay $50. A person convicted of manslaughter will pay $50. A person convicted of common assault will pay $50. A burglar will pay $50, even if he or she commits five burglaries in a night, affecting five families and creating five sets of victims. We think that is not appropriate. We think that is inequitable and does not recognise the gravity of the crime or the need involved. There again, if we were to provide money directly to, say, Victim Support in the form of an appropriation, then it would be up to the specialist agencies, like Victim Support and other agencies, who in my view deal better than any bureaucrat can with victims every day, to make those assessments and to provide the resource that is needed.

Then there is the issue of collection. As we have said, the bureaucracy around collection will cost more than the money that we get in. Then, of course, we note that if an offender owes only the levy and nothing else, then it will not really be collected. Offenders will not be chased for payment of the levy. We did ask the Government, time after time, how it would ensure that the levy will be paid. In law, the levy cannot be taken into account in terms of hardship to the offender by a judge. I thought Mr Borrows made a very good point when he reminded us that fines can be commuted to community service. So a judge can make an assessment on the basis of hardship and if the bill is $300 plus the $50 levy, which cannot be touched, the judge may commute the other $300 to community service or, quite legitimately in law, reduce the $300 to $200. The overall impact of that in totality negates any sort of impact that the offender levy might have had, because by doing that the judge has taken into account the hardship of the offender. There is no way to collect the levy, and at least Minister Power was upfront enough to say he could not guarantee its collection.

Borrows CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) Link to this

I am pleased to note that Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition is supporting the Government in respect of the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill. It will address the cost of being a victim in this country, because for too long victims have been ignored. Given that there have been gains under the previous Government, as there were under the Government previous to that, it is time that we started working with the scales of justice to show a little more equity in respect of the costs of being a victim.

In respect of this bill, it is important to strike a balance between the money that is required to be able to make some real gains, and what is recoverable. We heard from the previous speaker, Clayton Cosgrove, about the inconsistencies or inequities that he saw in respect of the fact that the $50 levy will be imposed on each appearance as opposed to each individual conviction. He said that some people will make on the deal because their crimes may be more serious or more prolific than those of a person who appears now and then for individual offences. The point is that in doing the research towards this bill, we found that if we aimed the levy at $50—at that level of offending and at that level of recovery—then we would be able to recover the maximum amount of money and do the most good with it.

The previous speaker also made comments about the ability to help victims by taking money out of one part of the Government’s Budget and putting it into another. He mentioned, for instance, the budget for independent schools, but he did not hold his hand up at all and acknowledge that the previous Government allowed a whole fleet of new independent schools but kept the cap on funding at exactly the same level, thereby dropping the budget per student for students attending those independent schools. He also failed to note that the money granted to independent schools is actually only about a quarter of what the Government gives to students attending State schools. So as far as a bang for a buck goes, the Government does very, very well out of it.

Given the parlous state of the Government’s coffers when National took over government, and given the world recession that we found ourselves having to cope with, the Government needed to find new money from somewhere. So, for instance, if we look at the education budget, we see $521 million worth of promises and pledges made by the previous Government but no money left to fund them. To take accident compensation as an example—because that was what the previous speaker mentioned in respect of services able to be offered by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), especially in respect of victims of sexual assaults—we know there was well over $2 billion of debt there. At the same time we know that when that debt was discovered, 18 more entitlements were made available to the public, which cut down the money that was available through ACC. If that level of debt had not been there, and if those extra entitlements had not been pledged to the public of New Zealand, who knows how much we would have been able to do? It does not really matter, because this is the pickle that we find ourselves in.

The other two or three points I will make about the previous speaker’s comments are these: I find it difficult to accept time and again that he does not trust the judiciary. Time and again the previous speaker said that the judiciary will always reduce a penalty on the grounds of hardship, even though it is not allowed to, and even though it is written into legislation that it is not allowed to make allowances for the fact that reparation will be ordered or for the fact a community-based or custodial sentence may be awarded. The previous speaker, the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, does not trust the judiciary to fulfil its function according to the statutes it is charged to operate under. I believe that in the separation of powers that we have, trust is a very, very important element. He should not be so duplicitous as to speak out of both sides of his mouth in respect of the way that Parliament operates and the way the judiciary operates. I do not think that it is fair to say that in this particular forum, where the judiciary does not have the opportunity to respond; if it does, it gets caned. He should not be so hard on the judiciary, or so duplicitous in respect of the way it is operating.

Garrett David Garrett Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I regret interrupting the member, but on two occasions now he has accused a member using an unparliamentary term. It does not add to the debate, at all. I think it should be suggested to him that he withdraw and apologise for the unparliamentary remark he has made against my honourable colleague on two occasions.

As I understand the Standing Orders—and I am a new member—the member referred to thus must object himself or herself, and that has not occurred.

Barker The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this

I have just consulted with the Clerk at the Table. The Clerk advises me that if a member is to withdraw and apologise on the basis of offence, it is for the member concerned to have taken offence. In this particular case, the member to whom the comments were directed was not present in the House. So then the issue is about whether it is an unparliamentary term. The term “duplicitous” is a graphic term and it is a strong term, but I do not think it is necessarily offensive in itself. I will not require the member to withdraw and apologise, but I want the member to take into account that he is getting into the sensitivities of the House, and he might wish to redirect his comments from this point forward.

Borrows CHESTER BORROWS Link to this

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker; I accept your counsel.

In conclusion, I am grateful that the members of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition have seen fit to support this bill. I accept that they agree that it is proffered in good faith, in spite of their stated misgivings about the ability to recover the money and the cost of that recovery. We recognise the work that the officials from the Ministry of Justice have put into the research on this legislation. They have advised the House—and it has been used many times in debate on this bill—that over the next 4 years we can expect to gain $13 million net that is not currently available to victims. We trust those officials from the Ministry of Justice in the same way that the current members of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition trusted them when they happened to be Her Majesty’s Government. I commend this bill to the House and I look forward to its implementation and all that it will do for victims in the future.

Pillay LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) Link to this

I am very pleased to stand to take a call on the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill. As Chester Borrows said, Labour will support this bill, and we do that because it does deliver something to victims of crime. But we are concerned because of the flat $50 levy that—

See if you can get through without mentioning the Sentencing Council.

King Hon Annette King Link to this

Thank you very much! I am a little tired of the members on the other side of the House, and in the select committee, because recently I have found that I have been intimidated every time I mention the Sentencing Council. It is bordering on bullying, and it is actually getting quite serious. But now that the member has mentioned it, I will plunge straight into talking about the cost of the Sentencing Council. This bill is actually at the cost of the Sentencing Council. I congratulate the Law Commission on all the work it did in terms of its proposals for a Sentencing Council. We know that in terms of supporting, giving clarity to, and giving some sense to, victims of crime, particularly serious crime, the Sentencing Council would have been a very, very sensible, commonsense—

They’ve got it in the UK and it works.

Exactly; it is proven in the UK. We did it: it was all set to go, but it was vehemently opposed at the time by Chris Finlayson. One of the first acts of the National Government was to get rid of the Sentencing Council, and that is really sad. The Government dealt to a very progressive action that would have delivered to victims in this country. I thank the member for the prompt, and I stand by what I have said and what I will continue to do, because I believe that it is the right of victims to expect that there will be a mechanism that provides consistency in sentencing.

As I said, Labour is not opposing the bill, but we say that it does very little to actually assist victims of crime. It is just window dressing, and it is a shame that quite unrealistic expectations have been raised. Chester Borrows made the point that the levy would not be at the cost of reparation, but I ask members of the House to consider that point, and we have already had it acknowledged that many offenders will not be in a position to pay this levy. The worst offenders will not be paying it. The levy will be collected, once any fines or reparation have been paid. I ask members to consider that the $50 levy will obviously have to be taken into account, and it would have an effect on the money available for reparation. That is a natural consequence; when a judge is setting those sorts of costs, the offender levy is a cost. It is taking from one hand and giving to the other.

Labour has serious concerns about the bill, and we will monitor it very, very carefully. When the scheme was first mooted, Simon Power claimed that it would collect around $5 million a year for victims. Then he was forced to scale back that prediction to $13.6 million over the first 4 years. Then we must subtract the estimated $1.3 million—if everything is collected—that it would cost to set up the levy, and the estimated $1.5 million each year that it would cost to run. Suddenly we have halved the amount available for victims, again. Where is the common sense in that?

It’s a shambles.

It is an absolute shambles. The Government’s approach to the levy is the same as its philosophy with accident compensation: charge more—

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Being a new member, I am not quite sure how to address this point but the member has misrepresented departmental figures, because $13.6 million is actually—

Barker The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this

That is not a point of order, and the member underestimates his breadth of knowledge from his time in the House. He has been through quite a number of debates and knows very well that that is a debating point and does not offend the Standing Orders. I say to him: good try, but don’t do it again.

Garrett David Garrett Link to this

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I would have to say that the member often overestimates his talents. The philosophy of the Government in terms of the collection of the levy is very much like its philosophy on accident compensation: pay more, get less. It is exactly the same approach: pay more money but put less into the hands of victims. I say to Simon Power that we will acknowledge that there will be some benefit to victims and that is why Labour is supporting this bill. Simon Power is on record as saying that the National Government is absolutely committed to looking after victims, so I would really appreciate it if he would sit down and talk to Nick Smith. The irony is that this bill that we are debating in the House today delivers something—not a huge amount—to victims, yet, on the other hand, we see Nick Smith absolutely shafting victims’ rights. If this Government really cared about victims, we would not see sexual abuse victims having to go to the media or to their MP to ask for a reversal of the decision to limit accident compensation counselling for those victims. The issue we are facing with the cuts to accident compensation—

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member’s speech appears to be an attack on a Minister and on a subject that has absolutely nothing to do with the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill.

Barker The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) Link to this

I say to the member that this is a third reading debate. I generally allow a pretty wide-ranging debate. The member has been, by and large, on the topic, and I am fairly liberal on this. But if the member raising the point of order wants to insist on a very strict reading of the rules and a very strict application of them, then he should expect them to be universal and apply to him as well. I would just suggest to him that before he takes another point of order along similar lines, he should check his Hansard and the Standing Orders and see how narrowly he ran down the rails on other speeches. I am not going to pull the member up, but I leave the member to be aware that the debate is on the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill.

Garrett DAVID GARRETT Link to this

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. I think that was very sensible advice. With the House’s indulgence I would like to recap the previous Labour Government’s commitment to victims. It introduced and passed the Sentencing Act 2002, which introduced a presumption in favour of reparation and resulted in that sentence being used more frequently. It introduced and passed the Victims’ Rights Act 2002, which set the scene for support for victims.

As a result of the Victims’ Rights Act, the proposal for a Victims Charter was announced in February 2002. The Victims Charter, which was released only in 2008, gives the ability for victims to be aware of the standard of service and support they should receive. The charter will go a long way to supporting victims of crime. I feel really proud that the charter was introduced by the previous Labour Government.

I turn again to the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill, as Mr Garrett would like me to do, and repeat that Labour supports the bill. We will not oppose any measure that gives support to victims but we would rather have seen that money spent more sensibly. Thank you.

Garrett DAVID GARRETT (ACT) Link to this

It will be no surprise to members that I rise to support the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill, despite the reservations that I have made known. But before I continue my speech, I would like to pay tribute to both the previous speaker, Lynne Pillay, and the previous Labour Government she represented, because it is indeed the case that Labour’s actions in 2002—specifically the Victims’ Rights Act—were a major departure from the common law and very, very welcome ones. It actually shocks people who are not lawyers to have explained to them that until quite recently the victim was, in fact, utterly irrelevant. According to the lofty towers in law schools, the crime had been committed against the State, and the victim just happened to be the person who was there. It is quite correct that that Labour Government made some very welcome changes in that regard, so I think that credit is well due there.

As I have said in earlier speeches on this bill, I think it can be summed up as a great idea but with some major flaws. One of the major flaws is of course the costs and the practicalities of collecting the levy. Mr Cosgrove said, for about the fourth time, that what could be achieved here is a diversion of money from taxation, or, more specifically—as he was playing to his audience—a diversion of funds that go to private schools to go to victims instead. Well, that misses the point that this is an attempt, in a sense, at user-pays, is it not? It is “offender-pays”. It is a levy on offenders for the wrong they have done. It is a cost to the offender and not, if you like, a cost to the rest of the taxpayers, but that point has been missed.

I believe that $50 is an entirely appropriate amount for the levy. It is the equivalent of three packets of cigarettes or a couple of slabs of beer, to use analogies that will be quite clear to the criminal fraternity. Every villain or his mate has 50 bucks in his pocket, or his mum or girlfriend can be prevailed upon to bring 50 bucks down to the court.

It is also entirely missing the point to say that the levy is the same, regardless of the crime. Another of the Labour members referred to a triple axe-murderer. Well, fortunately, and to my knowledge of crime in New Zealand, which is not inconsiderable, I do not think we have had one of those. But a member speaking in the recent series of speeches referred to the levy being the same for murder as for assaults, and the member said that that was wrong. Again, that is missing the point. Recognising the difference in the nature and gravity of crimes is a function of the sentence. The levy is not a sentence. It is, if you like, simply a price that a person pays for being a criminal.

The major problem, as members opposite have quite rightly pointed out, concerns collection. As a new member, in something of a flash in the head during the Committee stage, I came up with an idea that I believe would have solved the problem beautifully. The idea was that offenders would be held in custody after conviction—say, after being sentenced to do 100 hours’ community service—until someone came up with the 50 bucks. It is much like the way in which persons who are granted bail are now held in custody while their bail bond is written up, and that may take half an hour or half a day depending on how busy the police are and what sort of a prat the offenders have made of themselves. But if we were to introduce an amendment whereby a convicted person was sentenced to a community service, let us say, and was remanded down below until someone came up with 50 bucks, I believe that compliance would be damn-near 100 percent. We could install a separate Eftpos machine down there, a cash tin, and a receipt book, and compliance costs would be virtually nil. It would take just a bit of extra police time. But in my inexperience, I did not realise that such an idea—brilliant though I immodestly claim it to be—had to go the rounds of all the parties and needed much more time. I approached all the parties in the House, except the Greens.

Hon Member

Well, why not?

I did not bother to approach the Greens, because in my view, I am sad to say, they are criminal sympathisers. They have opposed every single law and order bill that has been introduced in this Parliament. Mr Locke, when speaking on the previous two bills we have debated—the car-crushing bill, to use the vernacular, and the boy-racer bill, to again use the vernacular—opposed them. He said in justification that it was wrong to increase the numbers in prison. Well, imprisonment is not a penalty for either of those bills. The fact is that the Greens oppose anything that calls criminals to account. On a personal level, I see that Ms Bradford is in the House. I think that I have a very cordial relationship with her, and I am sad to be saying this about her party while she is here representing it, but I believe that that is the case. Every other party I spoke to thought that it was a good idea but that it was too late in the piece.

Despite our misgivings about the collection aspect, we support the bill. I endorse what Ms Pillay said, and I hope that she is not offended by that. Anything that helps victims has to be good. Anything that helps victims has to be an advantage, even if the collection method is not so efficient. I will confirm again what I said earlier: if the dire predictions of inefficiency made by members opposite prove to be correct, then this party will support an amendment to remedy that problem and to have the levy collected more efficiently. As I have suggested, I would be interested to hear other members’ views if this comes to pass. But I cannot see how it would be less than a no-brainer to do as I have suggested, which is to install an Eftpos machine down in the cells, and to have a cash tin and a receipt book there. I believe that compliance would be close to 100 percent and collection costs would be virtually nil. With that small caveat, the ACT Party is happy to support this bill.

Flavell TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora anō tātou. As members of the House will probably be aware—especially after they viewed that awesome programme that screened on Māori Television last Wednesday at about 8.30, The Māori Party: The People’s Party—the Māori Party is a party of the people. The programme was broadcast by that awesome television station, Māori Television.

King Hon Annette King Link to this

Set up by Labour.

It was set up by Labour—

Opposed by National.

—and supported by the Māori Party and, sort of, by National. It is good to say that that issue is dead, done, and dusted, because we will be broadcasting the Rugby World Cup.

Be that as it may, I say to Mr Hughes that the real kōrero is that we kind of like to think that we are the people’s party.

Oh!

I am sure that he would agree with that. A part of that is that we place a lot of emphasis on sending out everything that we talk about in the House, that we write, and that we think about, and we definitely ask for feedback from all of the people on our awesome email tree. Within half an hour of sending out the speech that my colleague Rahui Katene delivered during the first reading debate on the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill in February, I received an animated email from a person called Rāwiri. I want to share his ideas—

Rāwiri Garrett?

—not quite—as they seemed to make quite a lot of sense, as have some of the other ideas that members have spoken about thus far in this debate. Rāwiri asked a few basic questions: “In regards to the Act I agree with the basic concept of it but trying to police it seems like a nightmare. 1. How are they going to pay the money if they have none? 2. Is there going to be an easy system for victims to get this money (normally, there is so much bureaucracy involved) 3. Which Government department is going to handle it.” That is a starting point. He went on: “At the present time I have no confidence in the justice system. Really the only way to bring down crime is to start at family level and make sure that there are decent and proper kaumatua on the Marae who can help educate the families. We all must take responsibility for the way things are not just put back onto individual families.”

For me, Rāwiri has summed it all up in a couple of sentences. Of course we agree with the basic premise that crime does not pay. So, as a principle, we have supported the notion that all offenders who have been convicted of a criminal offence must pay a levy of $50. It is not just the Māori Party that thinks like this. The United Nations Declaration of the Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power states that offenders should, where appropriate, “make fair restitution to victims, their families or dependants. Such restitution should include … payment for the harm or loss suffered,”.

We support the concept of the levy, particularly as a way to achieve the restoration of well-being. We are particularly conscious, though, of the disproportionate likelihood that Māori and Pasifika people will be victims of crime. Among both Māori and Pacific people aged 15 years and over, 47 percent had experienced some form of criminal victimisation in 2005. This compares with 43 percent of Asians and 37 percent of Europeans. We have to ask why Māori and Pasifika people are being overrepresented in the status of victimhood. According to the 2008 social report from which these statistics emerge, it is due to an association with many factors, such as Māori and Pasifika people being more likely to be young, to be unemployed, to be sole parents, and to live in more socioeconomically deprived areas. Probably the most disturbing fact of all was that for Māori women, the risk of being assaulted or threatened by a partner was three times the average—that is, 18 percent compared with 6 percent for all other respondents. So there are some pretty serious reasons why we want to look seriously at supporting this levy, and therefore, in effect, supporting victims.

We are a party that has often talked about restorative justice and the expectation that offenders will be required to take responsibility for addressing the harm their offending has caused. We want offenders to be held to account. As in a lot of this, the Māori Party has been involved in the establishment of the Youth Court sitting at Manurewa Marae in Auckland. It is an initiative that itself has gone on to be extended out to a judicially-led initiative from Gisborne. Marae-based Youth Court sittings involve the wider community in an attempt to enhance the usual Youth Court processes. They are designed to increase accountability and, in the end, to reduce reoffending. I have to say that I am in full support of the statement made by Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft earlier this year that court-ordered mentoring, compulsory education, and attendance at parenting programmes may succeed if the programmes are culturally appropriate and meet the ongoing needs of the offenders and their family and whānau. The important thing to the Māori Party has always been to ensure that the victims and, indeed, the offenders, are connected to whānau and have the support of their community around them to heal, to restore their sense of confidence, and to forgo the temptation to reoffend. We know that Māori are overrepresented as the victims of crime and, as such, need to be able to have a role in determining the approved agency and its service priorities and delivery.

So although we agree in principle with the concept that victims must be supported, there are still some questions such as those Rāwiri posed a little bit earlier. In short, these concerns are, first, that the cost of administering the scheme may make it unworkable; second, the impact the levy will have on the current reparation system; third, that the system deals only with victims’ access to services and not real financial support and compensation for victims of serious crime, especially if they cannot access accident compensation; and fourth, of course, the long-term implications for accident compensation and whether this initiative in effect opens the door for privatisation. We wonder too whether the crime tax being imposed by this legislation might end up with minor offenders paying for those at the high end of the criminal spectrum. In other words, low-level offenders may end up subsidising the fund for serious offenders sentenced to jail, who would be unlikely to pay the levy. To us, that seems rather unfair. The proof, of course, will be all in the implementation. Will this bill end up just adding to the number of so many uncollected court fines? How will the agencies address the practicalities of collecting and distributing the levy, and can we be assured that the administration costs justify this?

Finally, I referred to Judge Becroft earlier in my speech. One other idea that I thought was rather sensible was his analysis that because all but one of the orders available to the Youth Court are not considered convictions, young people who are dealt with wholly in the Youth Court are excluded from the requirement to pay the levy. This exclusion is consistent with the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989, which limits the ability of the Youth Court to impose financial penalties on young people or their families. These provisions recognise that although payments to victims can be a powerful restorative tool, many young people appearing before the court, or their parents, are unlikely to have the means to pay a fine or reparation, and any subsequent default could extend their involvement with the court in a way that is at odds with other attempts at rehabilitation.

I absolutely support these measures. Of course we do not want our children and families to suffer financial penalties, and of course we do not want to extend their time in front of the court. But I guess that yet again it raises the issue for me of how we encourage our young people to consider their roles and responsibilities. It is about facing up to the consequences of their actions and restoring to ourselves a sense of collective responsibility. This is a very complex area of legislation, but we fully support this bill at its third reading.

Bridges SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) Link to this

It is very good to follow Te Ururoa Flavell in this debate on the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill. He made some very perceptive comments about victims and the sociology of victims. As he made clear, and as the statistics and the research show, victims more than often are not, if we can put this in graphic terms, the little old lady who is worried about crime. I suppose that the cruel irony is that crime more often happens to the young, seemingly invincible Māori male who thinks that crime will not happen to him, but that is where crime is at. The young, the poor, and the dispossessed are the victims of crime much more often.

It is good to talk on this bill, which is very much about victims and putting victims back at the centre of our justice system. Previously, in other parts of the debate on this bill, I have talked about the very real benefits that what we are doing here will have for victims of crime. It will mean travel to and from court, and that is not insubstantial. It will potentially mean replacing clothing that had to be sent off for DNA testing. It will mean counselling. These things will make a real difference to the victims of crime. This bill is part of a bigger picture. It is a piece of the puzzle in what we and the Minister, Simon Power, are doing in the justice arena. We are toughening up law and order. We have put through a raft of bills as part of our initial 100-day programme. We have toughened up the bail law, sentencing laws, and aspects of parole. But what we are also doing, and what should not go unnoticed, is that we are putting the victims back at the centre of the justice system. We are not just all about offenders. We are also doing something for those on the other side of the coin—the victims.

I can think of a number of people who came before the Justice and Electoral Committee, and also the Law and Order Committee, who have been victims of crime who very much feel that they have not been part of the justice system and that they have not been listened to. In our society, the system we have is the“Queen v Smith”, not “Smith v Smith”. It is the Crown that brings a case. What that means is that often victims do not have control of the case, and rightly so because there may be cases where witnesses are reluctant but it is still right and proper for the Crown to bring the case. This bill illustrates that we are hearing what is being said at select committees. We are bringing victims back in. We are trying to do things to make it better for them to ameliorate the conditions in which they find themselves when crime occurs.

Some of the points made by members opposite are, at first blush, fair, but when analysed they do not hold much weight. One of the things that Clayton Cosgrove said is that judges will be dishonest about this and that they will say: “Well, we have got this $50 levy, so because of that we will reduce all the other fines and reparation.” I do not believe that is true at all. I think that judges will be much more true to their oath than that. They will read this bill and see quite clearly the intent of Parliament, and this $50 levy will not be taken into consideration when they look at other financial penalties.

Another thing that has quite frequently come out from members on the other side of the House is that it is not right that this levy is per offender rather than per offence. I say two things in relation to that. Firstly, if it were per offence, we would have a ridiculous situation where, for example, an offender coming before the court with 100 burglaries would attract exceptionally large penalties. That would be unworkable. Secondly, and this is a significant point, this levy is not a sentence. It is not about punishing the offender; it is about doing something for the victim.

I come back to the points I have already made. This bill is a plank in our justice armoury and in our agenda on justice. It is very much about putting victims back at the centre of the justice system, where they belong.

CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) Link to this

Before I start I want to go back to something that Mr Borrows said earlier about how the National Government has come up with this Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill based on research. I say to Mr Borrows that I find that really interesting. I would love to see that research, because I do not believe that we have seen it yet. The fact that the National Government is basing something on research is in complete contrast to what it has done with everything else. I say to Mr Borrows that I would like to see that research if he has it.

Labour members are not opposed to this bill, but we believe that it will do very little to assist victims of crime. That is our major issue with it. Just like much of the National Government’s other legislation, this is window dressing. It is another example of the National Government’s ploy to give ordinary New Zealanders the impression that it is taking extreme steps to tackle law and order, extreme steps to protect victims, and extreme steps to enforce punitive measures to punish criminals, but it is all a farce. The word for this Government is farcical. It has bought into the idea that perception is everything, and in the process of creating this perception of being tough on crime it has brought to the House a series of bills that, although not harmful, will do little to help reduce crime, to protect New Zealanders, and to compensate and care for victims.

The National Government has raised unrealistic expectations in the public about what it will deliver through this bill. Victims of crime are destined to be disappointed. The legislation sets out a $50 levy that will apply automatically when an offender has been sentenced in criminal jurisdictions. No matter which way we look at this, we see that it is quite a shambles. There are questions that have to be asked: what is the likelihood of these sentenced offenders paying the levy; will the cost of the bureaucracy required to enforce and collect this levy outweigh the benefits to the actual victim; and will the money collected to provide any level of assistance to the victim, let alone any adequate level of assistance, be enough?

It’s hard to put passion into the standard rhetoric you’ve been given, isn’t it?

The bill provides nothing more than lip service—just like that member over there, Mr Quinn—to the victims, and represents gross Government hypocrisy given the cutbacks to accident compensation entitlements.

That’s the problem when you don’t write your own speeches.

Tolley Hon Anne Tolley Link to this

The member over there is going on and on. I know that he finds it difficult to stand up without yelling, but I can speak calmly.

If the Government really cared about victims, it would not be attempting to make sexual abuse victims have to go to the media or an MP to reverse Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) decisions to limit their counselling. An earlier speaker commented that this was not related. Well, it is related. When we look at the legislation that this Government is proposing, we have to look at the entirety of it. We have to look at what it is trying to do on one hand while here it is trying to do something else on the other hand. At the end of the day, we are seeing a contradiction. So it is relevant and it is something that the public needs to be aware of.

With regards to accident compensation, we have recently seen a Taranaki grandmother of two young boys who had been raped, sodomised, and beaten being forced to go to the media and to her local MP, Jonathan Young, to beg for counselling. The ACC-approved counsellors said that the boys needed counselling and the police said that they needed counselling, but ACC turned them down. It seems the new step in the procedures could be trial by media or MPs, and that is something that this National Government has imposed on the public. Because this Government has been sitting on its hands, there are 1,100 cases pending of people needing sexual abuse counselling. If this Government really cared about victims, it would not be cutting the entitlements that families of suicide victims currently receive. Does this sound like a Government that cares about victims: “If my doctor told me that I was terminally ill and had 30 days to live, with the ACC rules the way they are, I’d be finding myself a train to throw myself under on the 29th day because my family would be treated so much more generously.”?

Who wrote this?

Tolley Hon Anne Tolley Link to this

Well, I say to Ms Tolley that I did not write that; it was her colleague Nick Smith, and I ask her to remember that.

The reality for victims is that this approach is getting worse, not better. It is astounding that Simon Power can keep a straight face when he says that the negative impact of crime on victims is a priority for this Government. National made a big deal in the election year of being on the side of victims. This bill, which levies all offenders regardless of their offence, has a paltry $50 as the upshot. The worst offenders who get jail sentences will be unable to pay the levy anyway.

Oh, we’ve got back to the bill!